Other Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Biopower, Biopolitics And Pandemic Vulnerabilities: Reading The Covid Chronicles Comics, Pramod K. Nayar Ph.D.

Critical Humanities

This essay examines Covid Chronicles: A Comics Anthology from the perspective of biopower and biopolitics. It contends that, on the one hand, the comics capture individual suffering and collective trauma of the pandemic; on the other hand, these comics draw attention to the role the state plays in regulating bodies to be monitored, governed and, in some cases, deemed disposable.

In A Country Obsessed With Mexican Food And Culture, Why Do Mexican People Not Receive The Same Reverence?, Elba T. Rodriguez

Capstones

For centuries, the U.S. has had a complicated relationship with immigration policies and people of color. And the U.S./Mexican border has long been a source of contention. From Operation Wetback to Trump’s “Build the Wall” campaign, Mexicans have faced outright prejudice and hate. This work will delve into the contradictory policies of the U.S. using Mexicans for physical labor while simultaneously deporting them back to Mexico. It will investigate the experiences of Mexicans in this country and the incongruity of many Americans that maintain anti-Mexican sentiments while also celebrating Mexican holidays, such as Dia de los Muertos or Cinco de …

Wim Van Den Doel, Snouck; Het Volkomen Geleerdenleven Van Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, Dick Van Der Meij

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

Tradition, Ritual, And Art Of The Baliatn; The Conceptualization Of Philosophy And The Manifestation Of Spirituality Among The Dayak Kanayatn, Yudhistira Oscar Olendo, Jagad Aditya Dewantara, Efriani Efriani

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Rapid globalization has slowly eroded the survival of the Baliatn ritual of the Dayak Kanayatn. Nowadays, the locals only rarely perform this ritual which is a manifestation of their culture. This study describes the Baliatn ritual pointing out it is pregnant with the meaningful philosophy of the ancestors. This tradition sets out the relationship between the people and nature; an example of gratitude and spirituality in this modern era. It also discusses the importance of cultural conceptualization through philosophy, art, and spirituality. Importantly, the Baliatn is an expression of the Dayak Kanayatn idea of how to live and appreciate life. …

Primates And Birds Of Sabulungan; Roles Of Animals In Sculptures, Shamanic Songs And Dances, And The Belief System Of Traditional Mentawaians, Juniator Tulius, Linda Burman-Hall

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Mentawaians sing ritual songs enshrined in archaic texts referring to particular primates and birds, while ritual and traditional dances imitate how gibbons, sea eagles, and other animals live in the natural world. Mentawaians craft sculptures of endemic primates and unique birds. The bilou gibbon ape and various other animals also symbolize specific sacred knowledge within the sabulungan spiritual belief system and traditional cosmology of Mentawai society. Although some do succeed in surviving, many older traditions have faded away. Among the traditions which continue intact, this report aims to examine the roles of primates and birds across the arts and in …

Belang And Kabata Banda; The Significance Of Nature In The "Adat" Practices In The Banda Islands, Joëlla Van Donkersgoed, Muhammad Farid

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

As an island community, the culture of the Bandanese is closely linked to their natural maritime environment. Not only is fishery the main source of income for many Bandanese, their cultural practices also include the creation of traditional boats and songs which tie the people, their environment and history together. These boats, locally referred to as belang or kora-kora, feature symbolic decorations and take part in an annual competition in which competing villages chant about their oral stories, known as kabata. Before this performance, various sacred locations, keramat, are honoured and a ceremony is held at the traditional house in …

Surviving The Influenza; The Use Of Traditional Medicines To Combat The Spanish Flu In Colonial Indonesia, 1918-1919, Ravando Ravando

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was widely regarded as the deadliest in modern history, claiming more lives than World War I. Colonial Indonesia was not spared. Several scholars have estimated that around 1.5 to 4.37 million people in the colony perished, making the death rate one of the highest in Asia. In the midst of the chaos and confusion caused by the pandemic, many people in colonial Indonesia turned to traditional medicines, particularly the poorer members of society who were inexperienced in Western medicine. Herbal treatment was considered a viable option for those who frequently faced discrimination when visiting …

Creative Lifeworld In Geriana Kauh Village; Intertwining Of Culture And Nature During The Pandemics In Bali, Lg. Saraswati Putri

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This research is an attempt to delve into understanding the process of creative imagination of the sacred which is revealed in the intertwining of culture and nature in Geriana Kauh, Karangasem, Bali. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the individual, the social and ecology, as well as the transformation of individual consciousness into a collective awareness sharing a communal reality. This qualitative research is developed by incorporating theoretical analysis and formulating field data collected in the traditional Village of Geriana Kauh, as the villagers resort to their cultural resources to deal with the cosmological imbalances caused by pandemics. …

Honey-Bees, Court Ladies, And Beekeeping In Java Before 1500 Ce, Jiří Jákl

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

People have been interacting with bees in the Indo-Malay world for thousands of years. Though the practice of robbing bees of honey and wax is relatively well-documented, we know very little about the early history of beekeeping in Southeast Asia. In this study I will use Old Javanese evidence to demonstrate that providing honey bees with artificial cavities was a practice known in Java at least by the twelfth century CE, several centuries earlier than suggested by the historians of beekeeping. In the second part of my contribution I will discuss in detail an intriguing passage in the Sumanasāntaka, a …

Journeys And Metaphors; Some Preliminary Observations About The Natural World Of Seashore And Forested Mountains In Epic Kakawin, Peter Worsley

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In earlier publications I have argued that ancient Javanese poets imagined the world to be one marked by distinctions between a social world consisting of palace (kaḍatwan) and countryside (thāni-ḍusun) and a wilderness of seashores and forested mountains (pasir-wukir). The social world was characterized by the presence of an effective royal authority; the wilderness by its absence. A distinction was also drawn between this world inhabited by human beings and a world in which gods, ancestral spirits, and other divine beings dwelt (kedewatan). Journeys through these landscapes are an enduring interest in the narrative literature in the literary tradition of …

“The Wandering Poet”; Depictions On Ancient Javanese Relief Panels, Lydia Kieven

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

A bstract There are about 60 panels with narrative reliefs from the area of Trowulan in East Java depicting mountains, rivers, bridges, trees, fields, dwellings, pendopo, and palaces. A male figure wearing a cap-like headdress accompanied by a little panakawan-like figure, walks along a cobbled path through a beautiful landscape. The figures are carved in the simple style of East Javanese reliefs on Majapahit temples. The predominance of nature, in amazing detail, is unusual compared to other narrative temple reliefs. The exact provenance is difficult to determine. The artefacts are scattered in museums all over the world: the majority in …

Language Distribution And Variation In The Urban Area; A Case Study In Depok, A Socio-Dialectological Perspective, Sri Munawarah

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

The Colonial Legacy Of Mooi Indië And The Captive Mind In The Environmental Policy Of Citarum Harum, Chabib Duta Hapsoro, Aulia Ibrahim Yeru

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Mooi Indië paintings represented the orientalist-colonial imagination of the picturesque Netherlands East Indies, with the obfuscation of the social realities on the ground and the silencing of the adverse effects of colonial capitalism. This article discusses the colonial legacy of Mooi Indië paintings on contemporary environmental policy in Indonesia, with a case study of the policy of the Citarum Harum Taskforce. This Taskforce was formed in 2018 and marked the national government’s attempt to rehabilitate the Citarum after it was declared one of the most polluted rivers in the world. It provides an analysis of several Mooi Indië paintings which …

On The Nature Of Botanical Gardens; Decolonial Aesthesis In Indonesian Contemporary Art, Sadiah Boonstra

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article examines decolonial approaches to the nature of botanical gardens in Indonesia in the artworks of nine artists featured in the exhibition On the nature of botanical gardens: contemporary Indonesian perspective at Framer Framed, Amsterdam in 2020. Zico Albaiquini, Arahmaiani, Ade Darmawan, Edwin, Samuel Indratma, Lifepatch, Ipeh Nur, Elia Nurvista, and Sinta Tantra presented works which confronted the coloniality of botanical gardens. This article provides a historical reading of the content matter of the artworks presented from a decolonial standpoint as conceptualized by Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, and María Lugones. The article will demonstrate that the artists have applied …

Animals In Javanese Manuscript Illustrations, Dick Van Der Meij

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Most Javanese manuscript illustrations of narrative poems and (pseudo)-historical chronicles (babad) depict only one part of the natural world: animals. Animals are portrayed in relation to the characters in the text they illustrate. Some illustrated Javanese manuscripts are discussed below in relation to the way in which they illustrate the natural world: these are the fictive narrative poems Serat Selarasa, Serat Panji Jayakusuma, Serat Asmarasupi, Serat Jayalengkara Wulang, and Serat Damar Wulan, and the poetic (pseudo)-historical chronicle Babad Perang Demak. It appears from the illustrations in the manuscripts discussed that in the narrative poems the wayang style is preferred and …

Loving Nature, Praising The Creator; The Visualizations Of The Natural World In The Islamic Magazine Pandji Masjarakat, Muhammad Yuanda Zara

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study examines previously unexplored visual representations of the natural world published in Pandji Masjarakat magazine in 1960. Known at the time as the most popular Islamic magazine in Indonesia, this publication not only discussed Islamic teachings as hitherto understood, but also provided ample space for the publication of drawings, paintings, and photographs of the natural world. This study argues that the visualizations of the natural world in Pandji Masjarakat were aimed at providing its Muslim readers all over Indonesia and in the wider Malay world with guidance on how to see the natural world and people’s place in it …

Mount Merapi In Drawings And Paintings; A Dynamic Reflection Of Nature, 1800-1930, Ghamal Satya Mohammad

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Mount Merapi in Central Java is one of the world’s most studied volcanoes. The frequent eruptions of this volcano and the densely populated areas on its slopes make Merapi particularly important to scholars of the natural and social sciences. Considerable attention has been devoted to contemporary aspects of this volcano, including research into forecasting and monitoring possible volcanic activity and eruptions. However, research investigating artistic representations of Merapi in a historical context, particularly local artworks referring to how people responded to a natural hazard such as a volcanic eruption, is still rare. In this paper, I explore how artists in …

Matters Of Perspective; Local Visual Expertise And Natural History Drawings In Java, 1820-1850, Andreas Weber, Sylvia Van Zanen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This essay examines how local draughtsmen using their visual expertise shaped natural historical knowledge production in colonial Indonesia in the early nineteenth century. The persons at the core of this essay are Tsing Wang Ho and Pieter van Oort, both draughtsmen who worked for the Natuurkundige Commissie voor Nederlandsch-Indië (Committee of Natural History of the Netherlands Indies). By zooming in on the Committee’s fieldwork in Java in the 1830s, this essay highlights that producing scientific drawings of animals and plants was a challenging endeavour. Despite detailed instructions from Europe and the logistical support of the colonial government in Batavia, the …

The Tropics And The East-Central European Gaze; The Natural World Of Southeast Asia In Polish And Serbian Travel Writings, Tomasz Ewertowski

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia in a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings for the period between the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the outbreak of the First World War (1914). The research is based on travel writings by twenty Polish and Serbian authors, who visited Southeast Asia during the period 1869-1914. Scrutinizing a corpus of such narratives should contribute to the study of perceptions of Southeast Asia, especially among travellers from very diverse backgrounds. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the article draws on works by other …

Deaf Accessibility In The Christian Church, Madison Finley

Honors Projects

Around the globe, only two percent of Deaf people have had the opportunity to be introduced to the Gospel. Religious accessibility is limited for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. This paper begins to investigate:

• How can Christian churches increase accessibility to religion, worship, and other programs for Deaf individuals?

My Honors Project activity is preparing research and materials for a physical guide booklet for Christian churches that do not currently offer any Deaf ministries or American Sign Language interpretation or that may be seeking to increase accessibility for Deaf individuals. The primary purpose of this project is to create …